Accession of Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland. Part V

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Duke of Gloucester, Elizabeth Stuart of England, King James II-VII of England, Prince William, Queen Anne of England, Roman Catholic, Sophie of Hanover, The Act of Settlement of 1701, William III-II of England

Anne’s final pregnancy ended on January 25, 1700 with a stillbirth. She had been pregnant at least 17 times over as many years, and had miscarried or given birth to stillborn children at least 12 times. Of her five liveborn children, four died before the age of two.

Anne suffered from bouts of “gout” (pains in her limbs and eventually stomach and head) from at least 1698. Based on her foetal losses and physical symptoms, she may have had systemic lupus erythematosus, or antiphospholipid syndrome. Alternatively, pelvic inflammatory disease could explain why the onset of her symptoms roughly coincided with her penultimate pregnancy.

Other suggested causes of her failed pregnancies are listeriosis, diabetes, intrauterine growth retardation, and rhesus incompatibility. Rhesus incompatibility, however, generally worsens with successive pregnancies, and so does not fit the pattern of Anne’s pregnancies, as her only son to survive infancy, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, was born after a series of stillbirths. Experts also believe syphilis, porphyria and pelvic deformation to be unlikely as the symptoms are incompatible with her medical history.

Anne’s gout rendered her lame for much of her later life. Around the court, she was carried in a sedan chair, or used a wheelchair. Around her estates, she used a one-horse chaise, which she drove herself “furiously like Jehu and a mighty hunter like Nimrod”. She gained weight as a result of her sedentary lifestyle; in Sarah’s words, “she grew exceeding gross and corpulent. There was something of majesty in her look, but mixed with a gloominess of soul”.

Anne’s sole surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, died at age 11 on July 30, 1700. She and her husband were “overwhelmed with grief”. Anne ordered her household to observe a day of mourning every year on the anniversary of his death. With King William III childless and the Duke of Gloucester dead, Anne was the only person remaining in the line of succession established by the Bill of Rights 1689.

To address the succession crisis and preclude a Catholic restoration, the Parliament of England enacted the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that, failing the issue of Anne and of William III by any future marriage, the Crown of England and Ireland would go to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her Protestant descendants.

Sophia was the granddaughter of James I-VI of England, Scotland and England through his daughter Elizabeth, who was the sister of Anne’s grandfather Charles I. Over 50 Catholics with stronger claims were excluded from the line of succession.

Anne’s father, the former King James II-VII, died in September 1701. His widow, Anne’s stepmother, the former queen, wrote to Anne to inform her that her father forgave her and to remind her of her promise to seek the restoration of his line, meaning her Catholic half-brother, James Francis, The Prince of Wales, but Anne had already acquiesced to the line of succession created by the Act of Settlement.

Elizabeth Stuart of England, Scotland and Ireland and Queen of Bohemia. Conclusion.

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Anna van Solms, Charles II of England, Elizabeth Stuart of England, Frederick V of the Palatinate, Prince of Orange, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Queen of Bohemia, Scotland and Ireland, The Hague

Fearing the worst, by the time of the defeat at the Battle of White Mountain, Elizabeth already had left Prague and was awaiting the birth of her fifth child at the Castle of Custrin, about 80 km (50 mi) from Berlin. It was there on 6 January 1621 that she “in an easy labour lasting little more than an hour” was delivered of a healthy son, Maurice.

The military defeat, however, meant that there was no longer a prospect of returning to Prague, and the entire family was forced to flee. They could no longer return to the Palatinate as it was occupied by the Catholic league and a Spanish contingent. So, after an invitation from Maurice, the Prince of Orange, they made their move towards The Hague.

Elizabeth arrived in The Hague in spring 1621 with only a small court. Elizabeth’s sense of duty to assist her husband out of the political mess in which they had found themselves, meant that “she became much more an equal, if not the stronger, partner in the marriage”. Her lady-in-waiting, Amalia van Solms, soon became involved with Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and married him in 1625. The two women became rivals at the court of The Hague.

While in exile Elizabeth produced eight more children, four boys and four girls. The last, Gustavus, was born on January 2, 1632 and baptised in the Cloister Church where two of his siblings who had died young, Louis and Charlotte, were buried. Later that same month, Friedrich farewell to Elizabeth and set out on a journey to join the king of Sweden on the battlefield.

After declining conditions set out by King Gustavus II Adolphus that would have seen the Swedish king assist in his restoration, the pair parted with Friedrich heading back towards The Hague. however, he had been suffering from an infection since the beginning of October 1632, and he died on the morning of November 29, 1632 before reaching The Hague.

Widowhood

When Elizabeth received the news of Friedrich’s s death, she became senseless with grief and for three days did not eat, drink, or sleep. When Charles I heard of Elizabeth’s state, he invited her to return to England; however, she refused. The rights of her son and Friedrich’s heir Charles Ludwig “remained to be fought for”. Elizabeth then fought for her son’s rights, but she remained in The Hague even after he regained the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1648.

She became a patron of the arts, and commissioned a larger family portrait to honour herself and her husband, to complement the impressive large seascape of her 1613 joyous entry to the Netherlands. Her memorial family portrait of 1636 was outdone however by Amalia van Solms who commissioned the Oranjezaal after the death of her husband Frederick Henry in 1648–1651.

Elizabeth filled her time with copious letter writing and making marriage matches for her children. Her life after the death of Friedrich, however, had its share of heartache. Between his death in 1632 and her own death 30 years later, she witnessed the death of four more of her ten surviving children: Gustavus in 1641, Philip in 1650, Henriette Marie in 1651, and Maurice in 1652.

Elizabeth suffered another blow with the execution of her brother Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland in early 1649, and the removal into exile of the surviving Stuart family during the years of the Commonwealth. The relationships with her remaining living children also became somewhat estranged, although she did spend time with her growing number of grandchildren. She began to pay the price for having been “a distant mother to most of her own children”, and the idea of going to England now was uppermost in her thoughts.

Death

In 1660, the Stuarts were restored to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in the person of Elizabeth’s nephew Charles II. Elizabeth, now determined to visit her native land, arrived in England on May 26, 1661. By July, she was no longer planning on returning to The Hague and made plans for the remainder of her furniture, clothing, and other property to be sent to her.

She then proceeded to move to Drury House, where she established a small, but impressive and welcoming, household. On January 29, 1662 she made another move, to Leicester House, Westminster, but by this time she was quite ill. Elizabeth was suffering from pneumonia, and on February 10, 1662 she haemorrhaged from the lungs and died soon after midnight on February 13, 1662.

Her death caused little public stir as by then her “chief, if not only, claim to fame was as the mother of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the legendary Cavalier general”. On the evening of February 17, when her coffin (into which her remains had been placed the previous day) left Somerset House, Rupert was the only one of her sons to follow the funeral procession to Westminster Abbey. There in the chapel of Henry VII, “a survivor of an earlier age, isolated and without a country she could really call her own” was laid to rest among her ancestors and close to her beloved elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales.

Elizabeth Stuart of England, Scotland and Ireland: Queen of Bohemia. Part III.

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Defenestrations of Prague, Elizabeth Stuart of England, Frederick V of the Palatinate, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Matthias II of Bohemia, Philip III of Spain, Queen of Bohemia, Rudolph II of Bohemia, Scotland and Ireland

Queen of Bohemia

In Bohemia discord between Habsburgs and Czechs and between Catholics and the followers of the reformed creeds erupted again into an open clash in the early seventeenth century. At that time, the Czechs were able to take advantage of the struggle between two contenders to the imperial throne, and in 1609 they extracted a Letter of Majesty from Emperor Rudolph II (1576–1612) that promised toleration of the Czech Reformed Church, gave control of Charles University to the Czech estates, and made other concessions.

Rudolph II’s successor, Matthias II (1612–17), also Holy Roman Emperor, proved to be an ardent Catholic and quickly moved against the estates. Violation of promises contained in the Letter of Majesty regarding royal and church domains and Matthias II ‘s reliance on a council composed of ardent Catholics further increased tensions.

Felipe III of Spain, who was the childless Matthias II’s nephew, acknowledged Archduke Ferdinand’s right to succeed Matthias II in Bohemia and Hungary in exchange for territorial concessions in 1617. The Diets of Bohemia and Hungary confirmed Ferdinand’s position as Matthias II’s successor only after he had promised to respect the Estates’ privileges in both realms.

In 1618 two Catholic imperial councillors were thrown out of a window of Prague Castle (one of the so-called Defenestrations of Prague), signaling an open revolt by the Bohemian estates against the Habsburgs and started the Thirty Years’ War. The Bohemian estates decided to levy an army, decreed the expulsion of the Jesuits, and proclaimed the Bohemian throne to be elective. The Bohemian rebels established a provisional government, invaded Upper Austria, and sought assistance from the Habsburgs’ opponents.

Matthias II died on March 20, 1619. The Habsburg heir apparent, Archduke Ferdinand, was a fervent Catholic who brutally persecuted Protestants in his realm of Styria. Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor on August 28, 1619 (Frankfurt), as Ferdinand II. The Bohemian nobles had to choose between “either accepting Ferdinand as their king after all or taking the ultimate step of deposing him”.

The Bohemian nobles decided on deposition, and, when others declined because of the risks involved, the Bohemians “pandered to the elector’s royalist pretensions. Two days before the Protestant Bohemian Estates deposed Ferdinand (as king of Bohemia), the Bohemia nobles offered their crown to the Calvinist Friedrich V of the Palatinate on August 26, 1619. News of Ferdinand’s deposition arrived in Frankfurt on the 28th but Ferdinand didn’t leave town until he’d been crowned.

Friedrich, although doubtful, was persuaded to accept. Elizabeth “appealed to his honour as a prince and a cavalier, and to his humanity as a Christian”, aligning herself with him completely. The family moved to Prague, where “the new King was received with genuine joy”. Friedrich was crowned officially in the St. Vitus Cathedral at the Prague Castle on November 4, 1619. The coronation of Elizabeth as Queen of Bohemia followed three days later.

The royal couple’s third son, Prince Rupert, was born in Prague one month after the coronation. There was great popular rejoicing. Thus, Friedrich’s reign in Bohemia had begun well, but only lasted one year. Friedrich tried to muster further support for the Bohemian cause, even attempting to convince the Ottoman Empire to provide military support in exchange for tribute.

The Bohemian crown “had always been a corner-stone of Habsburg policy” and the heir, Ferdinand, now Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, would not yield.

On November 8, 1620, the Czech estates confronted the imperial forces in the Battle of White Mountain near Prague and were decisively defeated ending Friedrich V’s riegn. This also ended the first phase of the Thirty Years’ War) on November 8, 1620.

Elizabeth is remembered as the “Winter Queen”, and Friedrich as the “Winter King”, in reference to the brevity of their reign, and to the season of the battle.